


the before and now

by asexuelf



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Abuse, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sad, Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 08:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexuelf/pseuds/asexuelf
Summary: Fenris is lost in a dark place. There's only one way out.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	the before and now

**Author's Note:**

> fixing up a lot of fics for nanowrimo, so here's day 3! i've been writing this on and off during my suicidal episodes to avoid, er, y'know, the real thing, but if you're struggling with it too, let me be the asshole that tells you stay.
> 
> the ending is open, but i've tagged for mcd just in case.
> 
> edit: man this is such a bummer fic to post on dragon age's 10th anniversary. whoops!

Fenris’ life is separated into Before and Now.

In the Before, there was a small room. The walls were cracked, colorless stone, lit only by a window far too high to reach. The room was only wide enough for Fenris to spread his arms. He could stand there, palms pressed to the cold stone. Alone. The room had no furnishings. There were four walls, one slave, and a door.

The door was never locked.

Danarius never forbade him leave the room, but Fenris knew that to do so would mean punishment. In the Now, he knows that Danarius would never have wasted such an expensive pet by killing him, but Before, Fenris was certain that to walk through that door without being ordered to leave it meant he would die.

The Now is a lot like that room, he thinks.

In the room, there was nothing. No bed, no food, no chamberpot. He would be stripped bare, thrown inside, and left to dwell on whatever his master imagined he had done wrong, sometimes for days at a time. The room was not quite wide enough to lay comfortably. The floor was always ice-cold.

Sometimes, he feels trapped in his freedom. He understands Varania’s feelings better than he wants to. Some nights, lying cold or feverish in his borrowed mansion, missing the comfortable sheets of Danarius’ bed (or even the little palette he was sometimes allowed in the corner of his master’s bedchamber), Fenris agrees.

Freedom is no boon.

He feels trapped in it, sometimes, like he traded whippings and starvation for peace of mind. For the first time, he’s not _ allowed _ things - they are either expected of him or he must work for them, bleed for them. The world is shaped one way and Fenris is shaped another, square peg in a round hole, and he doesn’t understand how to make it different. All around him, people are struggling, but they’re practiced at it. They aren’t like Fenris.

Now, all Fenris wants is escape. He’s _ free, _he’s finally free and he understands what it feels like, but he still wants to run and keep running and never stop running. He can’t do the things others can do. He can take a beating and he can slit a throat but he can’t prepare a meal or wash bedsheets or - or meet someone’s eyes without waiting for them to punish him. Some days, though they grow rarer, he can barely eat, because Danarius hasn’t said he could. This is no life.

Before, to leave that door meant death. Now, that door feels like the only way out. He’s been fighting for so long, running and running and running, and for what? _ This? _ This Void-damned half-life? He wants to stop.

He just wants it all to stop.

And he knows, _ he knows_, that if he just walks through that door, all his agony will come to an end. No more constant, painful pulsing of his markings, no more cold terror keeping him awake at night, no more confusion and shame and self-hatred. Just death. Just finally, finally death. 

And he'll be in the one place Danarius can't follow. What is not to gain?

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i can't promise there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but i'm gonna keep searching for it, and i hope you do too 💙


End file.
